5 Harshest TV Show Cancellations Of 2016

It’s the solemn duty of every TV critic, come this time of year, to report the most ruthless, heartbreaking cancellations pressed on us by the almighty networks. Cancellations aren’t always bad, of course. Sometimes it’s for the best. Who remembers Manhattan Love Story? Angel from Hell? Thank the networks for scrapping this garbage early and be grateful for small mercies.

Still, when it’s our favourite show things are different. It was just misunderstood. The network ripped it from us too soon – with plot threads left dangling in fact. Do thingy and whatsername end up together? Is that one dude really dead? If only more people had gotten the jokes instead of being zombie thralls to The Big Bang Theory (spits). Worse still, what if the show’s downfall was due to network meddling? Utterly unforgivable.

But which TV executions were the harshest and most transgressive this year? Which shows are currently sat on spike railings on the walls of the Red Keep while Joffrey Baratheon cackles maniacally? Let me tell you.

 

Agent Carter

If there’s one cynical trope the Marvel Cinematic Universe has come to rely on, it’s the disposable love interest. There’s Liv Tyler’s Betty Ross in The Incredible Hulk, Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster in the Thor movies and even Gwyneth Paltrow, whose Pepper Potts has been MIA since Iron Man 3. It was heartening then, that Captain America’s World War Two crush Peggy Carter managed to escape the same fate as her sisters in arms thanks to the creation of Agent Carter.

Sure, it was a TV miniseries on ABC and not a movie, but it was well written and took the MCU to a wholly unexpected place. It was distinctly feminist, and Hayley Atwell proved just how much of a talent she was both as a leading lady and an action star. As happens too often to genre shows on major networks, Agent Carter fell victim to low viewership. It’s sad, and I can’t help but wonder if Agents of SHIELD‘s sloppy third season might have had an impact on the show’s fate. Hopefully Atwell will be back as Carter at some point, but in the meantime ABC trust her enough to carry Conviction, one of their major new shows this fall.

 

Galavant

Okay, perhaps this isn’t harsh. When Galavant premiered in January 2015 no one really expected it to last five episodes, never mind two full seasons. A half hour musical comedy set in a magical kingdom that looked like the poor man’s Princess Bride, Galavant looked like an idiot had blackmailed a TV executive. Trouble was, Galavant was really funny. Whether a musical comedy hits the right notes for you is often a coin toss, but this was a series that knew how dumb it looked and attacked itself with self referential fondness.

The show’s fans and even its creators expected one season to be it – the final scene of the first series actually referenced how bad Nielson ratings might lead to cancellation. Somehow a second season materialised and the whole show has become something of a niche critical hit ending in an epic, ridiculous final battle. Naturally ABC had to go and ruin it all by cancelling the show, blaming low ratings. There’s still a small chance a third season might appear on Netflix (or even as a stage production), but don’t go getting your hopes up.

 

The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore

During his run on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart transformed it from a cheap cable comedy show lampooning current affairs to a full blown cultural phenomenon. For a while there, The Daily Show was where a huge chunk of Americans under 30 got their news. Who might be the next President? Why had Congress ground to a halt? Ask John Stewart.

So when Comedy Central were in need of a new show to fill the post-Daily Show evening slot left by the end of The Colbert Report, they turned to Larry Wilmore. A near decade long vetaran of The Daily Show, Wilmore turned his half hour into a vital mainstream outlet for thought provoking discussion on important societal issues. The Black Lives Matter movement, Donald Trump and Fox News were all treated seriously and logically, but with a biting satirical edge. In many ways Wilmore’s show became more cutting edge than The Daily Show itself, which makes it all the more depressing that Comedy Central president Kent Alterman cancelled the show for supposedly not resonating with young audiences.

 

Limitless

Remember Limitless? That movie where Bradley Cooper became super successful off the back of a magic pill that made him super intelligent? Last year CBS opted to turn the thing into a TV procedural, with Cooper on board  as an Executive Producer and occasional guest star. Shifting the focus to new underachieving shmuck Brian (Jake McDorman), who ends up in trouble after taking one of the pills, Limitless found its niche as a light hearted mystery of the week show. Alongside Brian was FBI agent Rebecca Harris (Jennifer Carpenter from Dexter), who shared excellent screen chemistry with McDorman.

The show didn’t exactly do terrible viewing figures. Sure, ratings steadily declined over the course of it’s 22 episodes but it still came out with more viewers than The CW’s Flash, which is considered a major hit for the smaller network. For a network so over-reliant on it’s NCIS franchise and in sore need of younger viewers a procedural with such a distinct tone and millennial appeal should have been a no-brainer for renewal. Instead of giving Limitless a second season though, the network opted to bring us two new procedurals: the insufferable Bull and a flat, by-committee reboot of Mcgyver. Let us know how that goes for you CBS, because I can’t say I have high expectations for either.

 

Castle

Okay, so this isn’t cut and dry as a harsh cancellation. By its bitter end, putting Castle out of its misery was probably the best decision. After badly screwing over the show’s female lead Stana Katic (who played Detective Kate Beckett) and supporting actress Tamala Jones (medical examiner Dr. Lanie Parish) to continue the series without them, there was little else ABC could do to keep face. In particular due to some of the nasty stories emerging from the show’s set regarding how horribly Katick was treated by male lead Nathan Fillion, who played the show’s namesake.

I’m not going to argue with the sentiment that Castle was probably on its last legs as a show. The ignominious way the network contrived to continue it, only to ultimately shelve the whole thing after the bad publicity it elicited, earns it a place here. Because really, were it to have continued without Katick it would have had a hard time calling itself Castle without looking ashamed. Katick’s Kate Beckett was as much the show’s hero as Castle himself. From the moment the show attempted to axe her from the show to cut the budget it was the end of the show, and it was badly done.